As we do our best to get around to putting on at least one more show – hopefully several – we’ve been quietly uploading footage from that glorious night of madcap fun.

This latest instalment features the impressive ventriloquism talents that Mongrels star Dan Tetsell keeps so well hidden, with help from his charming friend, Funny Monkey…

If you missed our previous videos in the series, you can check them out via this handy playlist over yonder. There’s still plenty more to come, including the sets from Waen Shepherd (as Gary Le Strange), Rachel Stubbings, Richard Sandling and James Cook, so stay peeled!

Now as we inch slowly towards putting on more events in the future, we’re showcasing footage from that glorious night of madcap fun.

This latest slice of lo-fi posterity is eleven minutes in the company of Steve Oram and Tom Meeten, with an excerpt from their maniacal Club Fantastico. You’ll never look at a packet of pitta breads in quite the same way again.

If you missed our previous videos in the series, you can check them out via this handy playlist over yonder. We’ll be bringing you more footage from the event soon, and are currently in initial stages of planning more shows, so stay peeled for all the latest info as soon as possible.

Peel This:

At long last, here’s the latest installment in our TVO Live video series!

For various boring reasons, it’s been a few weeks since we were able to bring you some footage from our inaugral live event which took place in May of last year, but now we can continue apace with some more great performances from our regulars!

Now as we inch slowly towards putting on more events in the future, we’re showcasing footage from that glorious night of madcap fun.

This latest slice of lo-fi posterity is a whopping 16 minute set from the new-wave folksters Hot Brew. First discovered in the Jackal Film, Roots, Oona & Crispin Wheatflake still look remarkably like Alice Lowe and Antony Elvin to us… what do you reckon?

If you missed our previous videos in the series, you can check them out via this handy playlist over yonder. We’ll be bringing you more footage from the event soon, and are currently in initial stages of planning more shows, so stay peeled for all the latest info as soon as possible.

At long last, here’s the latest installment in our TVO Live video series!

For various boring reasons, it’s been a few weeks since we were able to bring you some footage from our inaugral live event which took place in May of last year, but now we can continue apace with some more great performances from our regulars!

Now as we inch slowly towards putting on more events in the future, we’re showcasing footage from that glorious night of madcap fun.

This latest slice of lo-fi posterity is a whopping 14 minute set from electropop smut-merchants Dead Dog In Black Bag, and whilst we’re not going to win any awards for our filmmaking with this one, it at least gives you a rare chance to see the girls in action, Top Of The Pops style.

If you missed our previous videos in the series, you can check them out via this handy playlist over yonder. We’ll be bringing you more footage from the event soon, and are currently in initial stages of planning more shows, so stay peeled for all the latest info as soon as possible.

Over the coming weeks, as we inch slowly towards putting on more events in the future, we’re showcasing footage from that glorious night of madcap fun.

This week’s slice of lo-fi posterity features Gareth Tunley and Alex Kirk as painter/decorators turned film directors Ridley & Tony Scott. Their tales of accidental Hollywood success had us all in stitches, and you can see why below.

This installment is dedicated to the memory of the real Tony Scott.

Come back each Friday for a brand new installment, and stay peeled for further developments of TVO Live: The Sequel, coming soon…

In character, Matt Berry once memorably said: “Time is a menstruous woman. One cannot control her eddying currents.” Rarely has a truer remark been uttered in jest. It’s hard to believe a whole twelve months have passed since our inaugural live event at The Vandella, Shepherd’s Bush, made in collaboration with James Wren and Bob Pipe. And yet, there it is – a big fat first anniversary.

To celebrate this occasion, as we slowly but surely gear ourselves up to arrange further live events before the second anniversary is upon us and we increasingly look like one-hit-wonders, we will be bringing you weekly installments of footage from the jam-packed event. It’s fairly lo-fi due to a few technical hiccups on the night, but we recorded the whole event for posterity and now, at last, we can share it with you all.

For those not in the know, the event gathered together a number of our regular names for a night of fun and games. We had live comedy sets from duos Steven Oram and Tom Meeten, Richard Glover and Stephen Evans, Dolly Wells and Laura Patch, Gareth Tunley and Alex Kirk. We had solo sets from Dan Tetsell, Richard Sandling and Rachel Stubbings, whilst David McNeill nabbed Evans & Glover back for a spot of twisty-nonsense.

And that wasn’t all. Alice Lowe and Antony Elvin gave us a set from Hot Brew, whilst Elvin also regaled us with jaunty ditties alongside Will Summers. There was a rare chance to see DeadDogInBlackBag perform, and we heralded the return of Waen Shepherd as Gary Le Strange. The night was rounded off with a sumptuous set from James Cook, and we had Mike Fielding DJ-ing whenever performers took a well earned rest.

The night began, proper, however, with an important health and safety announcement from our honorary member, Bollo:

We’ll be bringing you more footage, all being well, on a weekly basis, so come back next Friday for your next installment!

The nominations are now open for the 2013 NME Awards, and it’s up to you who gets shortlisted!

Of course, there are several categories that deserve, nay demand, a TVO-related nominee! And 2012 has kindly provided us with a few options. For Best TV Show the psychedelic colour explosion that is Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy surely warrants a nomination? Or there’s award-winning Hunderby,Moone Boy, new Alan Partridge orthe much-missed Mongrels.

Best Film? How about Sightseers, written by and starring Alice Lowe and Steve Oram? For Best video you could nominate Tanlines ‘All of Me’, directed by none other than Julian Barratt, and for the various musical category nominations take a long look at the ‘Musicians‘ panel on the right hand side of this page and get typing! Wouldn’t it be nice if someone a bit less predictable won Best Album this year (Sue & The Unicorn or Loose Tapestries anyone?).

Finally, would it be too cheeky to suggest that The Velvet Onion Live would be a worthy nominee for Best Small Festival? And then there’s Best Fan Community? Ahem ;-)

You can make your nominations here. Go on, let’s make the 2013 awards our own! We’ll be letting you know when the subsequent voting commences, but in the meantime it’s over to you…

As you’ve probably gathered by now, here at The Velvet Onion we’re more than a tad giddy about the UK release of Sightseers. There are many, many things about the film that make it worthy of merit, not the least of which is the rather wonderful person who plays Tina, the female lead. For anyone who’s unfamiliar with her work, please allow us to introduce you to the writer-actor-comedian-singer-performer extraordinaire, Alice Lowe:

If you’re a regular reader of TVO you’ll be aware of Alice’s more recent projects (of which there are many); what you may not fully appreciate, however, is how many seminal comedy happenings (and comedy people)she’s been involved with during her career.

Sightseers isn’t Alice’s first time in a feature film; she’s even played another Tina in a film before, in Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz. Alice also appeared briefly in Ben Wheatley’s previous release, Kill List.

But let’s start back at the beginning, before the movie roles. Alice started out co-creating and performing in surreal experimental theatre shows such as City Haunts, Snowbound and Progress In Flying Machines with David Mitchell and Robert Webb. Since she first graced our TV screens in 2004 in Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace as Madeleine Wool/Dr. Liz Asher, Alice’s TV appearances read like a ‘Best of British Comedy’ roll call. There have been parts in the Mighty Boosh (as Monkey in Priest & The Beast), The IT Crowd (as Patricia in Fifty-Fifty), Snuff Box (as David Bowie), This is Jinsey(as Soosan Noop) and Man to Man with Dean Learner - plus roles in game-changing TV shows such as Little Britain, Pulling, Horrible Histories, Skins and Black Books, amongst others.

She also wrote and starred in E4’s overlooked comedy series Beehive(take a look here for our review of the show if you want to know more). Plus, she’s performed with the likes of Rob Brydon, Harry Enfield and Katy Brand in their various TV outings. So far so impressive.

For anyone unfamiliar with Alice’s comedy acting skills, for a quick immersion session we’d recommend a gander at Jackal Films creative output. In 2010 Alice teamed up with director Jacqueline Wright to produce and release a short film per month – that’s twelve shorts in total.

The quality and range of the films is truly impressive, as are Alice’s performances – take a look at them all here. You can also see some other shorts that Alice features in by clicking on this.

Impressive stuff, but one could argue that her talents are best experienced live, where her uncanny ability to portray the unhinged and yet also sing like an angel, really come to the fore. She was part of Ealing Live in the early/mid-2000s, an experimental comedy group where many of the UK’s finest (i.e. the artists that we write about) started their stand-up careers; take a look at the column on the right of this page and you can see who was involved.

Since then Alice has performed on stage with many of her contemporaries, and we’ve been lucky enough to see her live on a number of occasions, most recently at Oram & Meeten’s Club Fantastico, where she truly shone. Alice and her co-star in Sightseers, Steve Oram, also performed together during Steve Coogan’s 2007 tour, and some would argue that their supporting role, filling in between Coogan’s character changes, provided some of the funniest moments of the show.

Today marks the one month anniversary of our evening of music, comedy and downright madness at TVO Live! So what better way to celebrate the night than to give all of you a taste of what went down in our first trailer!

Take a look below at the first snippets of footage from our film of the whole shebang, and we’d like to extend a huge thank you to everyone that made it to the event; the superb comics and musicians that took to the Vandella’s stage, of course to James Wren and Bob Pipe for being amazing support, to Michael Henry Bull, Michael Glynn and Jon Burgess our fantastic camera team, and also extra thanks to Waen Shepherd for letting us use his brilliant track for our trailer.

To read more about TVO Live you can take a look at our previous recap of the evening complete with photos from the night!

The Velvet Onion is pleased to learn that, following his recent revival at The Velvet Onion Live!, electro-synth-pop genius Gary Le Strange will be making another appearance later this year.

Le Strange is of course, the brainchild of Waen Shepherd – a pitch perfect parody of a bygone era of cold blooded, new romantic precision pop. Originally created back in 2002 when Shepherd was in double act Peterford Golf Club with Simon Farnaby, the character soon expanded into 2003 Perrier Award Winning Edinburgh show Polaroid Suitcase.

Following hot on that show’s heels was a sequel – Face Academy - and regular club nights bridged the gap before third show Beef Scarecrow. By 2007, a series of music videos were shot for ITV by none other than Stewart Lee – but that’s where the story ended, bar a brief one-off live revival in September 2010.

Until, that is, The Velvet Onion invited Waen to appear at our first ever live event – and his 15 minute mini-set revival of Gary Le Strange proved to be one of the most memorable moments of the night.

News of this event caught the eye of Peter Steer of cult synthpop band Tenek – friends of Shepherd whom, in a random act of coincidence, TVO had recently seen live supporting post-punk legend Toyah. It’s a small world, isn’t it?

Now, Tenek have announced they will be supported by Gary Le Strange at their one and only headline gig of 2012. The show takes place at The Boston, opposite Tufnell Park Tube Station as part of semi-regular club night Bedsitland on October 6th.

If synthpop is your thing, this pairing of a TVO favourite and one of the leading bands in the genre may be too good to resist. We’ve included a Tenek music video to whet your appetite below.

There’s currently no word on how to acquire tickets, but if we hear any more info, we’ll keep you peeled. In the meantime, head over to Bedsitland’s Facebook page over yonder.

STOP PRESS: We’ve just heard that Gary Le Strange will also be performing on the bill with Jonny & The Baptists at The Vandella on 4th July.

Peel This:

You knew it was coming – but Thursday May 31st saw The Velvet Onion put on our very first live night, at the incredible new Shepherd’s Bush venue, The Vandella.

With a smattering of stars in the audience, and a VIP lounge so filled with comedy legends several people’s heads may have exploded, it was always going to be a special night – and the challenge for us was cramming so many fabulous names onto one bill.

Now, we’re a little biased, but we have to admit, it went rather well indeed – and judging by the post-show reaction everyone such a great time by the time Team TVO left the building we’d discussed coming back to do another, several times over!

The night was such an intimate affair that we knew deep down the vast majority of our Peelers would never be able to be there – but rest assured, we recorded the entire show in glorious high definition, multi camera action, and we’ll be cutting it together over the summer for a potential Autumn release – all online, all free, and for a limited period only – so stay peeled to be kept in the loop on that one.

In the meantime, we’ll be bringing you teaser footage as soon as we can, and we have a huge array of photographs of the evening for you to savour too. The first batch are all included below, so enjoy them safe in the knowledge that, all being well, their teasing nature will be fulfilled later this year.

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We’d like to extend our huge thanks to everyone involved with putting on the night – especially to the sheer wonderment of Bob Pipe for his technical expertise and the living legend that is James Wren for all of his support throughout this whole process. We’d also like to thank Sian Salsbury and everyone at The Vandella who have been the most accommodating team we could have ever hoped to have worked with – and our very hard working camera crew: Michael Bull, Jon Burgess, Michael Glynn! Not to mention everyone who helped out on the day as friends of us all.

And of course, we really must thank our glorious guests, who all worked hard, played hard, and made us love them even more than we did before. In order of appearance, our deepest, and more sincere thanks to: Mike Fielding, Dave Brown, Antony Elvin, Will Summers, Gareth Tunley, Alex Kirk, Dolly Wells, Laura Patch, Richard Glover, Stephen Evans, Holly Jane Shears, Suzy Evelyn-Hall, Alice Lowe, Steve Oram, Tom Meeten, David McNeill, Dan Tetsell, Waen Shepherd, Rachel Stubbings, Richard Sandling and James Cook.

We’d also like to extend our thanks to those who couldn’t make it in the end, but we know wanted to be there – in particular Joey Page for trying to the very last moment to get there, and both James Bachman and Lucy Montgomery whose enormous workloads stood in their way. Extra special thanks must also go to the legendary Rich Fulcher, who was drawn away for a charity event but still found the time to record incredible last minute voice overs to introduce each artist.

Finally, we’d like to thank everyone who came along to support us and the artists on the bill. You are the reason we’re able to keep doing what we’re doing to help the people you admire, and we’ll go on for as long as you’ll all have us. Until the next time… keep peeling!

The Velvet Onion is proud to announce two more names attending The Velvet Onion Live on May 31st at The Vandella, Shepherd’s Bush.

Joining our star-packed line-up are two of the stars of Luxury Comedy – the incredible Dolly Wells and the inimitable Mike Fielding!

Dolly, of course, is best known to Peelers for her role in Luxury Comedy, and she also appeared in two episodes of The IT Crowd, plus 2009 sitcom Free Agents alongside Sharon Horgan and Matt Holness, and prior to that appeared regularly in Star Stories alongside Tom Meeten and Alice Lowe. She’ll be bringing her unique blend of comedic charm to our incredible line-up at The Vandella, alongside her frequent collaborator – Laura Patch.

We’re also pleased to confirm that Mike Fielding – Naboolio himself – will be spinning the decks with a live DJ set before the show, so get down there early to catch our favourite Shaman in action!

The Velvet Onion Live! takes place on Thursday, May 31st 2012. Tickets are on sale NOW via Ticketweb, priced just £15. Find out more about our amazing line-up RIGHT HERE! Please remember the venue is a licensed bar so it’s 18+ ONLY.

We’ll have a few more surprises tucked away on the night, so you’d be mad not to be there! The full official line-up, minus said surprises, is as follows:

Alice Lowe ♦ Antony Elvin ♦ Dan Tetsell ♦ David McNeill

DeadDogInBlackBag ♦ Dolly Wells and Laura Patch ♦ Gareth Tunley

James Bachman ♦ James Cook ♦ Joey Page ♦ Mike Fielding

Rachel Stubbings ♦ Richard Glover ♦ Richard Sandling ♦ Stephen Evans

Steve Oram ♦ Tom Meeten ♦ Waen Shepherd ♦ Will Summers

Sadly, we must also confirm that due to work commitments, the fabulous Lucy Montgomery has had to pull out of her appearance on the night. Lucy sends her sincerest of apologies and has tried to shift the earth to get there, but sadly these things are sometimes inevitable.

We at The Velvet Onion would like to thank Lucy for being willing to take part, and hope to work with her again soon. She’ll no doubt be top of our list if we manage to pull off TVO Live 2…

The Velvet Onion is pleased to be able to announce several more acts for our debut live night on Thursday May 31st at The Vandella.

The Velvet Onion Live! takes place on Thursday, May 31st 2012. Tickets are on sale NOW via Ticketweb, priced just £15. Please remember the venue is a licensed bar so it’s 18+ ONLY.

Two new funny men joining our star-studded bill are comedy legends James Bachman and Dan Tetsell.

Bachman, of course, is known for a wide range of productions – from his guest appearances in The Mighty Boosh, The IT Crowd and Beehive, through to his regular appearances in Saxondale, That Mitchell & Web Look, Bleak Expectations and Sorry, I’ve Got No Head.

Tetsell came to TVO’s attention via Mongrels and radio sketch show The Museum Of Everything, but he is also well loved by comedy fans thanks to his work on As It Occurs To Me with Richard Herring, starring in BBC2 sitcom Lab Rats and writing shows as diverse as After Your Gone, The Omid Djalili Show, We Are History, Gash and The Basil Brush Show!

James and Dan are not the only names to be added to our star-studded line-up! We’re very pleased to confirm that cult singer/songwriter James Cook will be joining us for an exclusive mini-set. Cook is, of course, best known as the former frontman of Nemo – and for his frequent appearances in The Mighty Boosh. He released his debut solo album, Arts And Siences last year.

Another musical virtuoso joining us is Will Summers – Tudor-folk legend and frequent collaborator of Antony Elvin. Boosh fans may remember Will’s guest appearance at Noel Fielding & Dave Brown’s outdoor painting & signing session in Soho last October, and prog fans will no doubt be familiar with his work with Circulus & Princes In The Tower.

All in all, this show is going to be packed out with some of the very best names in Booshdom. Our full-line up is as follows!

Alice Lowe ♦ Antony Elvin ♦ Dan Tetsell ♦ David McNeill

DeadDogInBlackBag ♦ Gareth Tunley ♦ James Bachman

James Cook ♦ Joey Page ♦ Lucy Montgomery ♦ Rachel Stubbings

Richard Glover ♦ Richard Sandling ♦ Stephen Evans ♦ Steve Oram

Tom Meeten ♦Waen Shepherd ♦ Will Summers

We have a few more names to confirm in the next few weeks, so stay peeled for all the latest info – and if you want to be there for an incredible night of music and comedy, come and peel the onion live and BUY TICKETS HERE NOW!

The Velvet Onion is going live!

Hands up – who thought our news about a TVO gig was a great big April Fool? We just couldn’t help but tease with this one, but for the last few months we have been quietly preparing for our biggest challenge yet: Putting on our very own live show!

We are honoured to be able to confirm a star-studded bill set to take place at THE VANDELLA: The frankly brilliant new venue in Shepherd’s Bush that is set to be home to new club-nights by Oram & Meeten and Rich Fulcher in its very first month in business.

Run by James Wren, who also manages The Hen & Chickens, the retro-styled venue is intimate and cosy – the perfect place for a TVO rendezvous.

We’re also very proud to be working with Bob Pipe of The Forgery Club fame – a man who has put together more bills featuring our favourite people than anyone else on the planet, it seems! Together, we have concocted quite a show – as you can see from our initial poster!

The gig is set to take place on Thursday, May 31st 2012 – and tickets will be on sale TOMORROW via Ticketweb, priced just £15.

We are overjoyed to have confirmed the following artists for your delectation:

Alice Lowe ♦ Antony Elvin ♦ David McNeill

DeadDogInBlackBag ♦ Gareth Tunley ♦ Joey Page ♦ Lucy Montgomery

Rachel Stubbings ♦ Richard Glover ♦ Richard Sandling ♦ Stephen Evans

Steve Oram ♦ Tom Meeten ♦ Waen Shepherd

As the poster states, we have more acts to be announced – and we’ll be doing so shortly, once we’ve finalised the various details… as mind-blowingly awesome as this bill is, you’d be mad to think this is all you’re gonna get from us!

Now we know the venue cannot possibly contain you all. There are literally thousands and thousands of you good peelers worldwide, and we know that a 200 capacity venue with a strict 18s+ limit is going to mean a lot of you can’t be there on the night. Those that can, we strongly advise you to get your ticket as soon as possible to avoid missing out!

So that no-one is left out, we’ll be armed with all manner of equipment on the night to bring you as much aftermath event coverage as we can in the form of exclusive interviews, behind the scenes photos, filmed performances and much more!

Stay peeled for all the latest news – and to steal a catchphrase from that man of action, Howard Moon: “Enjoy the show!”